True Love and Other Disasters

Chapter 9

A steady downpour drenched Seattle as the United flight from San Jose landed at Sea-Tac Airport and rolled to the gate. Faith sat in coach with her Fendi purse on her lap. It had been years since she’d flown coach. She’d forgotten how crowded it was. Not that it mattered. If Jules hadn’t found her a flight, she would have sprouted wings and flown herself home. She would have rented a car and driven. Hell, she might have even walked. She hadn’t cared what it took; she’d had to get out of California.

She was a coward. Running away like she was guilty of some crime and not wanting to face what she’d done. Maybe at some future date, she’d be able to face Ty again. Maybe next week, or next month, or next year, she’d be able to be in the same room with him and not recall the excruciatingly painful details of kissing him and touching him and wanting him more than she could ever recall wanting a man. His pushing her away and his wide shoulders and dark head as he’d left her in the hall, alone and confused.

She would have to see him again, of course. But not today. She just couldn’t face seeing him on the flight back from San Jose. Probably not tomorrow either, when her behavior and his rejection would still be so fresh in her head.

She was definitely a coward, but feeling like a coward didn’t compare to feeling like she’d betrayed her husband. After she’d kissed Ty and made a fool out of herself, she’d gone to bed and lain awake all night with a horrible churning guilt plaguing her and burning a hole in her stomach. Virgil was dead, but she still felt married. Felt like that kiss-that hot, consuming kiss she’d shared with Ty-was a knife to the back of her dead husband. Not because it had been so bad, but because it had been so good. So good she might have done anything to make it last. To make it burn hotter and longer. To drink him in and suck him up and feel things for him she’d never felt for Virgil. Hot, achy things she wanted to do with a man who did hot, achy things to her.

She gathered her jacket and hatbox from the overhead and moved toward the gangway. It was after noon the next day, but she still was as embarrassed and confused as she had been standing outside her hotel room watching Ty walk away. How could he have left her? He’d been as turned on as she was. She’d felt his extremely hard erection pressed against her, and yet he’d been able to walk away. And as humiliating as that was to face, thank God he had. Waking up naked with one of her hockey players was so extremely wrong. Way beyond acceptable. He worked for her. Good Lord, he could probably sue her for workplace harassment or something. What a disaster.

She shoved her arms through her jacket sleeves and hung her purse on her shoulder. So, how had it happened? With him? Of all people? There was only one possible explanation.

Layla.

The part of her she’d created to deal with the harsher realities of her life as a stripper. The woman she’d created who didn’t mind a lap dance because the money was good. The woman who’d partied till the sun came up and loved a good tequila shooter. The part of her that liked good, hot, sweaty sex with a beautiful man.

She was Mrs. Duffy now. She didn’t need Layla anymore. Layla was trouble.

Her Louis Vuitton wheelie waited for her at the carousel and she pulled it to long-term parking. Her neck and shoulder ached from the long flight and she had a difficult time shoving the piece of luggage into the trunk of her Bentley. By the time she made it to her condo, she wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and pull the covers over her head.

Pebbles’s yippy bark greeted her as she opened the door to her apartment. She picked up her hatbox and wheeled her suitcase inside. The drapes were drawn across the wall of windows overlooking Elliott Bay, casting the great room in inky shadow. The gas fireplace licked the fake logs and Marvin Gaye’s smooth “Let’s Get It On” purred from the speakers of her sound system.

“Mom?” she called out as she moved into the room and hit a bank of lights.

“Faith!” Her mom rose to her knees in the middle of the living room floor. A man knelt behind her, and except for their shocked expressions, they were both completely naked.

“Oh!” She spun around to face a blank wall as her shock buzzed her tired brain. “Oh my God!”

“What are you doing here?”

“I live here!” While Marvin sang about not beating around the bush, her cheeks burned with the horror at what she’d glimpsed. Walking in on her mother was just as disturbing now as when she was fourteen. And ten. And seven. Hell, pick a year. She pointed behind her. “Who the hell is this?”

“Pavel Savage,” the man said.

Her mouth fell open as she stared at the rough texture and latte-colored paint on the wall in front of her face. “Ty’s father?”

“You weren’t supposed to be back until tonight,” her mother accused.

“What does that have to do with anything? You’re having sex. In my living room.” Oh God. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“With one of my hockey players’ dads!” she continued, placing a hand on her hot cheek. And not just any hockey player’s dad. The father of the hockey player she’d made out with the night before.

“We’re adults, Faith.”

“I don’t care.”

“You can turn around now.”

Slowly, while Marvin purred about “being sanctified,” she turned as if she didn’t trust what she might see. Her mother had slipped into a red silk robe while Pavel zipped up his jeans.

“I thought Sandy was staying with you.”

“She went back home.

Pavel moved toward her and offered his hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Faith.”

She pulled her hands behind her back and shook her head. “Maybe some other time. You just had your hands…You know.”

“Faith!” Her mother gasped as if her daughter had done something to be mortified over.

Pavel tilted his dark head back and creases wrinkled the corners of his blue eyes as he laughed. Except for the creases and the laugher, he looked a lot like his son. “I understand.” He reached for the black shirt thrown across the back of the couch. “How was the trip?”

“What?” He wanted to know about her trip? God, these people weren’t normal.

“How is his ankle holding up?”

“What?” she asked again. Her mother had been in town less than two weeks and she was already having sex in Faith’s home. Faith had never even had sex in the penthouse.

“How is Ty’s ankle holding up?”

“Oh. Uh. I don’t know. I had to leave before they played. I felt sick and came home.”

“What’s wrong with you?” her mother wanted to know.

“I’m coming down with something.”

Pavel buttoned his shirt. “I hear the flu is going around. Perhaps you need to rest and drink lots of fluids.”

Was she really standing here talking to Ty’s father about the flu? While he got dressed?

“Maybe you should sit down.” Her mother put her hand on Faith’s forehead. “You do feel hot.”

That’s because her blood had rushed to her head. She swatted her mother’s hand away. “I’m fine.” Or at least she would be if and when she could get over the last twenty-four hours.

“I’m sorry, Pavel,” Valerie said as she moved to the sound system and turned off Marvin.

She was sorry, Pavel? Faith just caught her mom naked on her hands and knees. Something a child should never see, and she wanted to stab out her own eyes. What about I’m sorry, Faith?

“Not to worry, Val.” He tucked his shirt into his pants. “We will have many more enjoyable times together.” He shoved his feet into a pair of boots and grabbed his leather jacket.

“Next time we’ll get a hotel,” Valerie promised as she walked Pavel to the door.

“Please do that.” Faith picked up her hatbox and wheeled her suitcase down the hall toward her room. Just before she shut the door to her room, she could swear she heard them kissing. She tossed her hatbox on the bed, unzipped it, and took out her clean underwear. Years ago she’d lost luggage and now she always carried her jewelry and other essentials on a commercial flight with her.

“I can’t believe you,” her mother said as she opened the door and walked into the room. “You embarrassed me in front of Pavel.”

She glanced over her shoulder as she moved across the floor toward her mahogany dresser. “You were having sex in my living room like a teenager,” she reminded her mother. “You should be embarrassed. For God’s sake, you’re fifty.”

“Fifty-year-olds enjoy sex.”

Which wasn’t the point at all. She opened a drawer and placed her panties inside. “Not in their daughter’s homes with strangers.”

“You were gone and Pavel isn’t a stranger.”

“I know.” She shut the drawer and moved toward her bed, which was covered in a red silk duvet. Her mother and Pavel were just a disaster waiting to happen. And it would happen. It always did. “He’s Ty Savage’s father. Couldn’t you have found someone other than my captain’s father?”

“Did you see Pavel?” she answered as if that explained it all. Sadly, for Valerie, it did.

“Yes. More than I wanted.”

Valerie crossed her arms beneath her large breasts. “I’ve never understood how you could be a stripper and a Playmate, yet remain such a prude about sex.”

She’d never been a prude. Far from it; she just wasn’t a nympho, like her mother. Despite what people thought of her, her former jobs, and the way she’d dressed, she’d never been a very sexual person. She’d always been able to control herself. Except for last night, anyway. And she wasn’t so sure that had been about sex as much as satisfying five years of pent-up need. It was just too bad that need had been released all over Ty Savage.

“How could you be in Playboy and want to live like a celibate nun? That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Stripping and doing Playboy had never been about sex. Those things had been about money. Faith had always kept the two separate in her own head. She’d explained it to her mother before and she didn’t feel like explaining it again. To her mother, being sexy and sex were one and the same thing, and she’d never understand. Not even if she tried. Which she didn’t. “And I’ve never understood how you could sleep with men you hardly know.”

“I know Pavel.”

“You’ve only been in town for two weeks!”

“It only takes an instant to feel chemistry.” Her mother sat on the edge of the bed and Pebbles jumped up beside her. “It’s this…” She snapped her fingers. “It’s a spark that you either feel for a man or you don’t.”

“But you don’t always have to act on it,” she said as Pebbles jumped inside the hatbox, spun around in a few circles, then made herself cozy.

“If you keep that kind of passion suppressed, it explodes and you do something rash. Before you know it, you’re naked and cuffed to the headboard of some guy named Dirk with a ruler tattooed on his penis.”

Faith held up a hand for her mother to stop. “How about we adopt the military ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. I won’t ask and you don’t tell.” She really didn’t want to hear about her mother’s exploding passion. Although after last night, when she’d kind of “exploded” in the hallway at the Marriott, she really couldn’t cast stones from her glass house. But in fairness to herself, she hadn’t exploded like that in a very long time. The last time she could recall had been with an old boyfriend on his Harley. Or at least they’d tried to have sex on his Harley. It hadn’t really worked out.

“I don’t understand you,” Valerie said.

“I know. And I don’t understand you. I don’t understand how you can keep repeating the same mistakes with men. When I was fifteen, I stopped counting the men that came and went in our lives.”

“I know I made mistakes.” Valerie sighed as if her mistakes were no big deal. “What parent hasn’t made a few mistakes?”

A few? Valerie had been married seven times and engaged at least a dozen.

Faith reached inside the hatbox and had to dig beneath Pebbles’s long fur for her jewelry roll. The little dog growled and bared its tiny white teeth. “You bite me, and I’ll drop-kick you off the balcony,” she warned.

“Don’t listen to her, Pebs,” Valerie said as she reached over and scratched the dog’s head. “She’s just jealous.”

“Of a dog!”

“Not you. Her. It’s called sibling rivalry. She views you as a sister competing for my attention. I read about it in a book.”

Since Valerie didn’t read books, Faith suspected she was making it up. She wrapped her hand around the jewelry bag and pulled it from beneath the dog.

“I don’t think Pebbles likes you lecturing Mama.”

Mama. Faith almost gagged. “I’m not lecturing you. I just think you need to respect yourself more.”

“I respect myself.” Her mother tied the belt and smoothed the silk over her legs. “You’re not the morality police, Faith. You married an old man for his money. You can hardly lecture me on morality.”

In the beginning of her marriage, that was certainly true. “You can only feel secure with yourself if there’s a man in your life.” She unrolled the silk bag and spilled her diamonds into her palm. “I find my security with money. Neither of us can claim the moral high ground.”

“Money is a poor substitute for love.”

“I had both with Virgil.”

Her mother sighed and rolled her eyes.

“It was a good marriage.”

“It was a passionless, sexless marriage to a man old enough to be your grandfather.”

She moved into the big walk-in closet stuffed with clothes in varying shades of beige, white, and black. “You’ll never understand my relationship with Virgil. He gave me a great life,” she said as she punched the numbers to the safe and popped it open.

“He gave you money in exchange for five years of your life. Five years of your youth that you can never get back,” Valerie called after her, and Faith refrained from reminding Valerie that Virgil had given her money as well. Enough that she didn’t have to work. “You can’t have a great life without passion,” her mother added.

Faith swung the safe door open and pulled out one blue velvet tray filled with Tiffany and Cartier earrings. Passion didn’t buy your child shoes when the soles wore out or put food in your child’s stomach. It didn’t keep the repo man from hooking your mother’s car to his wrecker and hauling it away from your single wide while the rest of the kids in the trailer court pointed and laughed because at least they were better off than you.

Faith looked down at the glittering stones of all shapes and colors. Passion did not take away the sick feeling in your stomach that you were one paycheck away from living in an alley behind a Dumpster at the Hard Rock.

“Those don’t keep you warm at night.”

She looked at her mother standing a few feet away. At the deep lines in the corners of her green eyes and her Farrah hair, messed up by a man’s hands. Faith slept beneath a comforter filled with the down of Hungarian white geese to keep her warm at night. She didn’t need a man for that.

She placed her diamonds on the blue velvet tray. She didn’t need a man for warmth or money. Passion was overrated and never really lasted anyway. Her mother was certainly an example of that.

Faith had everything she needed. She didn’t need a man for anything. And yeah, she knew what people would say about that. That she’d used her body instead of her mind to get what she wanted.

So what? She didn’t care. All that mattered was that it all belonged to her and no one could take it away.